Sing the Sorrow
by Sultan Peppershaker
Summary: Nothing from nowhere, I'm no one at all: Radiate, recognize one silent call as we all form one dark flame...
1. This Time Imperfect

Keely couldn't tell what bothered her the most. Was it the fact that her boyfriend Dan had been cheating on her for two weeks? Maybe that he had been cheating on her with Liz Fox, whom she couldn't stand?

Or maybe that it had been Liz, and not Dan, that told her about it; that he didn't even have the decency to tell her it was over himself?

She decided it didn't really matter which it was; the fact of the matter was that her relationship was no more, and there was no way she was getting him back.

_Why did I think he would be any different? Of course he would end up like every other guy... he didn't love me. He didn't ever love me. He was just... using me..._

Her musings were interrupted by her younger sister, Bonnie, knocking on her bedroom door. "C'mon in," Keely said in a chipper voice.

"Hey, I just wanted to borrow your--" Bonnie stopped in her tracks as she noticed her sister was still in bed. "What are you doing still in bed? Are you sick?"

Keely let out a chuckle and shook her head. "No, just woke up late I guess. What did you want to borrow?"

"Hmm? Oh, your blue headband. I figured it would go good with this," she muttered, looking down at her tied-off button-up shirt and blue tartan skirt. "But that's not the point. You're never in bed after I'm up. Are you sure you're not sick? I don't want to catch the flu."

"I feel _fine_," Keely reassured her. "Check by my scarves, I think I left it somewhere in there." She smiled at her sister and threw back her blankets, and started to get out of bed.

Bonnie gave a noncommittal "Mm" as she walked to the closet and grabbed the headband. "Well, talk to me if you feel like something's bothering you," she said as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail.

"It bothers me that I don't have an outfit like that," Keely observed. Bonnie rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"I'm being serious, Keely. You know you can talk to me, right?"

"Of course. Come on, get out, I've got to get ready. Out!" Keely urged, nudging her sister along. Once she was safely alone in the room, Keely sat down and rested her cheeks on her hands, with her elbows on her thighs.

_Why do I let this bother me so much? Relationships in middle and high school aren't supposed to last... they're just... practice for what's ahead..._

_Of course if they were really practice, we'd go through them dry and flat, without any emotions. Like robots.... and that's just not right._

Try as she might, she couldn't convince herself that Dan wasn't worth her grief.

With considerable effort, she walked over to the door, opened up her closet, and picked out a long-sleeved shirt and pair of jeans to throw on. She wasn't feeling particularly concerned with her appearance today. Within 15 minutes, just as she was picking up her bag, Bonnie knocked on her door. "C'mon, Keel Big Fish, let's go."

Keely couldn't help but feel as if nature were mocking her with the completely overcast sky that day. The autumn air was dense and chilly, and Keely could practically feel the moisture with each breath she took in. She sighed and kicked at some dead leaves on the walkway as they headed off for school. She kept her eyes down, scanning the sidewalk as they walked along. She couldn't think of anything to say; the only sounds other than a soft breeze came from her Converses and her sister's Mary Janes plodding along the concrete, crunching the occasional leaf.

Bonnie, who found the silence unbearable, decided to try and strike up conversation. "So seriously, what's bothering you so much? Is it Dan?"

Keely pursed her lips and looked away from her sister while she slid her hands into her pockets.

"Oh no... it is, isn't it?" her sister asked, her tone softening. "He broke up with you, didn't he?"

"Sort of. His girlfriend did," Keely said bitterly.

Bonnie put a sympathetic arm around her sister's shoulders. "He wasn't good enough for you, anyway, Keely."

Keely wanted to break out in argument at that. _Who's to say he wasn't good enough for me? You can't judge him based on my standards! Only I know what I want! If I say he was good enough for me, then dammit, he was good enough for me! Nothing you say is going to change that, and I can't stand your empty platitudes telling me everything is going to be okay!_

Instead, Keely said, "Yeah, you're probably right."

"Trust me, Keely, guys are all idiots. The best you can hope for is one that realizes he's an idiot, and that he needs you to survive."

"Like _you_ should be talking," Keely said, smiling despite herself.

"Don't go dragging _me_ into this. You're the one being all mopey."

"I'm not being all mopey." Keely rolled her eyes. "I'm being ... understandably morose."

"Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The point is... you got rid of a guy who obviously didn't care about you, and now you're open to find someone else who really does. Someone who _deserves_ you."

Keely sighed. Maybe her sister had a point.

"You've got plenty of time to be worrying about that anyway," Bonnie added. "Why are you so concerned about finding someone? You're young! Get out there and have some fun! Forget about guys!"

Keely couldn't help but laugh at the irony of her younger sister giving her this advice.

"It's not funny; it's true and you know it!"

Keely shrugged. "Okay, maybe it is. Can't you just let me be a little sad over this?"

"You know I don't like seeing you sad, Keeko."

She nodded. The conversation died off and they finished the rest of the short walk to school in silence. Bonnie opened the door and walked in before her sister. "So hey, I'll meet up with you after school? Or do you have something going on after that?"

"Yeah, I'll probably meet up with you. I don't know. I'll text you later."

"Okay," Bonnie said, and started down the hall. Keely sighed softly and turned the other way and started walking down the hall.

She was stopped by a pair of arms grabbing her from behind. "Hey, what the--!" She glanced over her shoulder to see that Bonnie was hugging her.

"Have a great day, Keely," she said, her head resting against her sister's shoulder.

Keely slowly turned herself around to hug her sister. "Thanks, Bonbon." With that, Bonnie turned back around to head down to her locker. Keely smiled softly and turned to find her own locker.

"Hey, Tia," she said as she spun the combination to her locker.

"Hey girl! I—" Tia pulled her face away from the mirror in her locker and glanced at Keely. "Ohh.... hey.... you doing okay?"

Keely gave Tia a quizzical expression as she tried spinning her combination again. "What are you talking about?"

"It's just... I heard about the whole Dan thing, and... well, you don't really look your best. Did you get enough sleep?"

"Not enough. Too much. One of those," Keely said, resetting the lock and starting to spin the combination again.

"Well, don't worry about it, Keel." There was that advice again. "You don't want to be with a guy who goes after Elizabeth Fox."

_You can't possibly know what I want! Don't even pretend you know what my interests are, because you don't! _Keely shrugged her shoulders and looked over at Tia. "She is kind of a skank, isn't she?"

Tia just raised her eyebrows and gave a knowing look.

Keely pulled on the locker door in frustration, having spun the wrong combination for the fourth time. "WHY can't I get this today?" She shook the handle before sighing and thumping her forehead against the door. Tia looked over curiously, then slowly reached over and dialed Keely's combination for her while she rested her head against the door.

"Try it now," Tia said, going back to her mirror. Keely half-heartedly tugged at the door, which opened.

"Thanks," Keely said. "I must be more tired than I thought."

"You gotta get more sleep, Keely," the sage observed.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind, Dr. Chandler," Keely said sarcastically as she took her psychology book out of her locker. "Um, you done there?"

"Takes effort to look this good, hon. Did you already forget since this morning?" she teased, grinning at the less-than-best-dressed girl in front of her.

"Well, whatever. I'm just ready for this day to be over. Is it me or do Mondays just get earlier and longer each week?"

"Ha, come on, stand tall and operate positively. You've got a long day ahead of you, Keely! Try and look at it with an open mind!"

Keely sighed. She wasn't ready for a long day.

* * *

**Today's discussion: button-up or button-down? I always say 'button-up' (despite the fact that I button them from the top down), but I am curious to what everyone else thinks. Tell me!**


	2. …but home is nowhere

"I don't get it," Keely said as she investigated her shoelaces. "I nailed the audition..."

Tia sighed and patted Keely on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, hon... I know how much this play meant to you..."

Keely sighed. She had just discovered that she had failed to get the part of Sandy in the Pickford Player's Club performance of _Much Ado About Nothing_.

"It wouldn't bother me so much if that... that floozy hadn't gotten the part instead of me..." Keely sneered as she pictured Liz onstage, smiling her phony smile.

"Well..." Tia sighed. "I mean... most girls like her are good at acting.. She's probably had a lot more practice than you!" Tia's attempts to cheer up Keely fell painfully flat, as Keely just sighed and kicked at a rock that a small column of ants was working its way around. She smiled softly, despite how minimal her contribution to the progress of the ants may have been. Tia's voice brought her attention back to the matter at hand. "Hello? Paging Dr. Teslow!"

"Oh," Keely said, looking at her hands interestedly, "I... I just really wanted that part... I don't know. Guess I should've figured she would steal that from me too."

"Keely, there's no way you could have known that. But, I mean..." Tia sighed, wondering how to phrase this so she wouldn't hurt Keely's fragile feelings. "Maybe you should.... put acting on the backburner for now and try something else?"

Keely wasn't sure how to react to this. Was Tia trying to gently tell her she was bad at acting? It would explain why she didn't get the part. "But why? I mean I really love..." Keely trailed off, trying to reassess her feelings.

"Why is that?" Tia asked, hoping to be able to find something else Keely might enjoy based on what she had to say.

"I don't know," Keely sighed. "Something about being able to step up in front of all those people and read those lines... how I can have such an impact on them emotionally, you know? But at the same time... I don't have to be myself... I get to hide behind this character that's been invented... so I don't feel quite as exposed up there, you know?"

Tia nodded slowly. "Gotcha..."

"At the same time, it's kind of frustrating, though... knowing that it's not really _me_ that's touching all these people, just my character... the character I didn't write, even. It's just... I don't know. It's too hard for me to describe, I guess. It's an amazing feeling, but at the same time, it's kind of... invalid, I guess."

"Is it invalid just because it's not a real story? Some books and stuff have really relevant stories to them, even if they didn't happen. Like, I'm sure _Frankenstein_ made a lot of people think twice about trying to create zombies."

Keely shook her head. _Good point, bad example,_ she noted. "You should've stopped while you were ahead..."

Tia opened her mouth, but couldn't think of a comeback, and slowly shut it. After a few seconds, she muttered under her breath, "Well it scared _me_ anyway..."

"I don't know... I'd like to be able to have an impact on people... but I don't know if I would want to just bare my soul in front of a bunch of strangers, you know?"

Tia looked up. "You know, there are other ways of expressing yourself. I mean, why not try and take up art or something? Or maybe songwriting? Ooh, or singing! You'd be really amazed at what you can do if you just sit down and try it!"

Keely sighed as she swept her auburn hair out of her face. "I would, but... I don't know, I guess I haven't gotten around to trying anything new. And I think you know my stance about singing in public."

"Oh, right... but, what do you mean, you haven't gotten around to trying new things?"

"I mean, I'd like to try writing a song, and I've even got a few ideas for some, but..."

"You don't want to run out of ideas."

Keely slowly looked over at Tia, who was looking back at her intently. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Tia said, rubbing her hands together, "if you don't want to run out of ideas, the best thing you can do is not try them out. You'll convince yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do it right, so then the ideas stay in your mind. 'Cause then, no matter how bad it gets, you'll still have those ideas you can get to later, and that makes you feel better."

"I'm not sure where you're going with this," Keely said.

"It's basically something that tricks your brain into making you feel good about what's going on in your mind. You'll keep waiting, keep putting off these ideas you have, and keep convincing yourself how perfect it'll be when you finally write that song, or paint that painting, or whatever. You'll imagine it's so perfect, and exactly how you wanted it to be. The problem is that most ideas kind of... well, they suck when you first try them out."

Keely looked back down at the ground. Tia was striking a chord she wasn't sure she wanted to be played.

"I mean, no matter how much you plan something out, there's still gonna be a time where you have to try it out for the first time," she continued. "And it's probably gonna be pretty bad the first time you do it. But even if you fail at something five times, you'll have that much more experience than the person who's just letting it sit in their brain..."

Keely bit her lip, thinking of what to say. "But... I don't know if it's _that_, I mean... don't get me wrong, I'd love to try it out, it's just that I don't... I don't feel motivated enough to do it, you know?"

Tia sighed slowly. "I think you're fixated on acting. Once you get over this, you'll be fine. You'll never know what you can do if you don't try it out! You might be a really talented songwriter! I mean, I've heard you sing and play the piano... you're really good! But you'll never know what you can do if you don't try it out!"

Keely stared vacantly at the ground. She realized Tia was right; she really was fixated on her acting. Was it really so bad to follow a dream of hers, though? Should she really give up on it just because she didn't get one part in one play? As wrong as it may have been to get so hung up about what had just happened, wouldn't it be just as wrong to give up on her dream to pursue something she might not even be good at? Something that she might not find as fulfilling?

Tia opened her mouth again, seemingly hearing Keely's thoughts. "And it's not like you have to stop acting altogether... Sometimes it's better to take a break from stuff like that every now and then... maybe you'll look back and find that your feelings about it changed after taking a break for a while..."

Keely was beginning to become a little unsettled at how close to home Tia's words were hitting.

"I'm just saying," she went on, "that you don't know what you're capable of until you try it... you know? And one other thing... don't let her get into your head like that. She's not worth the wasted brainpower."

"I guess," Keely sighed.

The only problem she saw with that logic was that her brain didn't seem to take much effort to focus her thoughts on how Liz was steadily stealing her life. It seemed like more of an effort to try and cheer herself up than let her negative thoughts fester.

"Well, Keely, I'd better go," Tia said, patting Keely on the shoulder. "Mom will kill me if I don't get back and clean up my room. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Hmm? Oh, sure, tomorrow. See ya..." Keely let out a small sigh as her friend left. "Just can't let her get into my head like that," she repeated to herself, solidifying what she considered to be the best advice Tia had given her all day.

_Well, Keely old girl, looks like it's just you and me..._

"Great, an evening alone with my brain. Just what I wanted."

_I wonder what she did better than I did to get the part though,_ she mused as she stood up from the bench in her backyard and headed back inside.

"Hey, Sweet Potato, did Tia head home?" her mother asked, looking up from a binder she was preparing for work.

"Mmhmm," Keely replied as she started upstairs.

"Now Keely..." She paused at the foot of the stairs. "... Tomorrow I'm going to get home late. I'm closing a deal up in Del Boca Vista."

"Oh, okay... what time will you get back?"

"Well I was going to stop by the store on the way back, so probably around six. I was wondering if you could fix dinner tomorrow."

"Oh, sure thing," Keely obliged, and started up the stairs.

"Oh, and how was your day today, Marshmallow?"

Keely paused again, her foot on the second stair. "Oh, you know. Same old, same old. Boring old school, you know?"

"No trouble?"

She looked over at her mother, trying not to appear too suspicious. "What kind of trouble?"

"_Any_ kind," Mandy said. "Anything that's bothering you?"

"Oh. Uh, no, not really..." Keely looked up in an attempt to appear to be deep in thought. "Mm, nope. Nothing. Thanks though!"

"Okay then, if you're sure, Buttercup."

"Mmhmm." Keely waited another second before finally heading up the stairs.

_'No trouble?'? That's kind of a weird question to ask, isn't it? You usually only ask if there's trouble if you know there __**is**__ trouble, not if you want to find out if there's trouble._

_If you want to find out if there's trouble, you ask... you ask how things are going, maybe. Or maybe "What's on your mind?" That sometimes works. You don't ask if there's trouble cause you'll never get a straight answer that way._

_So does she think there's trouble? Or – does she know there's trouble? _

_I don't know if that's it... Mom doesn't just let stuff go if she knows something's bothering me. She will keep me talking until she gets it out. But she didn't. So she must not think there's anything wrong._

_Right? Right._

Keely smiled to herself as she laid back on her bed and looked up at the ceiling, folding her hands underneath her head. Problem resolved.

_..._

_But then why would she ask if there was trouble!? She already asked how school was, so there was no need to ask the second question unless she thought something might be wrong!_

_So why didn't I tell her there was trouble? Why didn't I talk about Liz and Dan? Or Liz and the play? Why would I keep my mouth shut if she knew there was something bothering me?_

_But why would she let me go if she knew there was something bothering me?..._

_This is getting ridiculous._

Keely sat up and looked blankly at the light switch, trying to clear her mind. "She's not bothering me," she said aloud, trying to convince herself. Bonnie, who was walking by Keely's open door, paused and looked over at Keely with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity.

"Er, you tell her, sis," she said before walking off to her own room.

_Why do I leave the door open when I talk to myself?_ Keely wondered. _Oh, hey, I'm not thinking about Liz anym— oh, wait._

"Stupid brain. Great. Just great."

_What makes her so much better than me? How did I end up on the short end of the stick all of a sudden? Ugh, people are so rotten. I wish I could live a million miles away from everyone._

_Well, maybe not __everyone__. Just people like Liz._

She sighed and slipped her shoes off. Her anatomy book sat on her desk, open and ready to be read. She walked over and took a seat in her chair. She let her hands fall into her lap as she stared dully at the text.

_When am I ever going to need to tell the difference between epithelial and squamous cells? How is this useful information for an actress?_

"Ugh, shut up, brain. Tia said that acting wasn't good for me."

_Well, whatever I'm going to be, I don't need to know that epithelial cells line surfaces of body structures and cavities. When am I – hey, did you just trick us into learning something?_

_Why are you even studying anyway? I'm way too tired for this. A nap would be nice. How about that?  
_

Keely sighed and leaned her head back. Her eyes fell on a program for a performance of _Candida _she had starred in a year earlier. She pursed her lips and laid her head down on her open book. The only thing that eventually silenced her thoughts of Liz being unquestioningly given the lead part over her was the fact that she fell asleep after just a few minutes.

* * *

**FUN FACT: You talk to yourself more than you talk to other people. **

**...  
**

**If you just said, "That can't be true" under your breath, then you have really just proved my point further. If you say it in a review, I guess you got me.  
**


	3. The Leaving Song

Keely pulled her English book out of her locker, then shut it and leaned against the wall, waiting for her sister. After a minute of waiting, her phone rang. "Yeah?" she said, picking it up.

"Oh, hey Keel, I've actually got to stay after today, so you can go ahead and head on home. But I'll be there in like... an hour."

"...okay," Keely sighed. Her sister hung up and she slid her phone back into her bag. She slowly walked to the front doors, clutching her book bag to her chest with both arms. Upon reaching the front door, she saw Liz and a few of her friends talking on the front steps. She stopped in her tracks and leaned her head back, briefly considering just using another exit altogether to avoid confrontation.

_I'm making too much of this. It's not like she's out to __get__ me, she's just..._

She frowned as she realized that she couldn't think of a way to finish that thought. Nevertheless, Keely sighed and used the door closest to the wall, hoping to avoid being seen.

She walked down the wheelchair ramp, staring at the cracks on the sidewalk as she went by them. Liz and her friends kept talking, seemingly unaware of Keely's presence. She dared a glance up over at them, and gasped when she saw Liz looking back at her suspiciously. She quickly averted her eyes, focusing them back down on the concrete.

The sky was again completely overcast. Rain fell down mercilessly in a downpour, soaking Keely to the skin through her clothes. She kept her head down, looking down on her black boots to avoid getting water in her eyes.

She heard a voice calling out her name from behind her. Keely paused and glanced over her shoulder. Candida was rushing towards her, a black umbrella opened above her head. "You wanna share?" she asked as she ran up beside her.

_A little too late for that_, Keely thought as she looked at her soaked clothes. She forced a smile onto her face and glanced at Candida. "Thanks! I thought you were hanging out with my sister after school..."

"Oh, no, that was yesterday..."

"Hm. I can never seem to keep track of what that girl's doing. Heck, I have enough trouble running my _own_ life."

"I imagine you must be busy all the time!" Candida gushed. She wasn't shy of hiding her enthusiasm about having a conversation with someone of such high esteem that was also two years ahead of her.

"Well, you know me. Busy busy busy me."

"Oh, that's so great... I wish I had your life!"

"Yeah, sure you do," Keely muttered under her breath as she looked towards the street.

Having not heard Keely's remark, Candida went on. "I'm sorry for rambling on like this, I guess I'm just a little jealous. I'll try to stop."

"Please do," Keely snapped. Candida immediately stopped talking and looked at Keely, her eyes full of worry. "Sorry," Keely blurted out, upon seeing the girl's expression. "I'm just a bit on edge lately. I've got a lot going on, like I said. Sorry. It's just that.... it seems like anything that can go wrong, has gone wrong. Just having one of those days. Or weeks, I guess."

"What do you mean?" Candida frowned in confusion. "I would have thought that there would be plenty of great guys going after you now that, uh... well—" Candida cut herself off awkwardly.

Keely sighed. "Let's just say it's hard to notice what's passing over your head when your eyes are on the ground."

"Do you want to talk about it?" the younger girl eagerly asked, hoping to be helpful in any way.

"Not really. Not much to talk about that you'd be able to help me out with."

"Oh." The disappointment in her voice was obvious. "I'm- I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. Don't be sorry."

"So, you ...don't want sympathy." Candida was a little confused by this.

"Anyone can sympathize with someone when they're feeling depressed or sad. It takes a really good person to sympathize with somebody when they're succeeding at something. That's a lot more selfless, you know?"

"I guess so... but isn't sympathy with pain still a good thing? I mean it kind of helps you remember that you're not alone in all of this..."

"I don't like the feeling of other people being sorry for me. I don't like that they feel bad just because I do, like they shouldn't be happy until I am. I just don't buy into that, I guess."

"So you'd rather suffer alone. That seems kind of... weird."

"No, it's not _that_... it's possible to be there for somebody without being sad with them. It's unnecessary to try and feel somebody's pain with them."

Candida slowly nodded. "Actually.... I like that. I like that a lot. I think you're totally right."

"Of course you do," Keely muttered again. Candida didn't hear her, again.

"Mm. Well my house is down this way," Candida said, pointing down the street. Keely nodded. "I'll see you around school though!"

"Sure thing," Keely said, offering up a small smile. Candida waved goodbye and walked the other way. Keely stood at the street corner, watching the back of the girl's head as she walked away. Eventually, she turned on her heel and walked down the other way.

Rainwater poured down from the skies, ran along the curb, and poured down storm drains. Keely watched intently as a single leaf floated along in a stream of rainwater, spinning and rotating helplessly in the current, before it too was sucked down into the unseen depths past the storm drain. She frowned sadly and knowingly.

A car engine rumbled from behind. A dark blue sedan pulled up alongside the curb, an automatic window rolling down. A familiar voice called out from inside. "Hey, Teslow!"

Keely looked back down at the sidewalk, watching the water flow through the cracks in the sidewalk beneath her shoes.

"Teslow!" the driver called out again. "Why are you walking out here all by yourself?"

"Shut up, Jackie," Keely muttered as she kept walking, staring straight ahead.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" Jackie, one of Liz's best friends, leaned over from her seat to get a better look at Keely from her roofed, climate-controlled car. "You know they're all talking about you, right?"

"I don't care," Keely boldly retorted, trying to hide the fact that she was lying through her teeth.

"Suuuuure you don't.... Just thought I should let you know! Guess they knew you were going to choke if they let you onstage anyway!"

Jackie laughed as she drove off and rolled up her window. The rear tire of the car sped through the water on the side of the street and kicked it back, splashing all over Keely.

She wiped her face with her equally-soaked hand. She couldn't tell if her face was mostly wet from the rain, the splash in the face from Jackie's car, or her own tears. She reckoned it was all three.

After briefly considering hurling a rock at the retreating car, she decided it wasn't worth it. Her jacket, now drenched, wasn't helping much in keeping her warm, so she took it off and folded it over her forearm.

_Right. I can't let them get to me. That's a joke._

_But I am better than them. Much better. So she's been having a good life lately. And so I haven't. That'll change._

_I'll get through this, it'll just take time._

_Right?_

_..._

_Right._

Keely forced a smile on her face and kept walking home. And while her teeth shown brightly, her eyes, however, stayed low.


	4. This Celluloid Dream

"Wait, is it on?"

"Uh, yeah. Did you think the big red light meant it was off?"

"Well, sorry, I'm not really used to using these."

"It's not that complicated, though."

"Okay, so just, do whatever it is that you do, then..."

The bedroom door swung open, and Keely leaned forward to turn off the video she had been watching. Via, though, had already caught a glimpse of the screen, and recognized what was on it. "Oh, Keely, you're not watching that again..."

"I wasn't watching anything," Keely quickly denied.

"I saw it. I saw you and I know what it was."

"And so what if I was watching it? Let's say you're right – which you're not – and that I was watching that video again. What does that mean? Is that so bad?"

Via sighed. "Keely, there's a difference between reliving the past and living _in_ the past: a big one. I'm just... I'm afraid you're just clinging onto things that you've lost forever."

"I am not," Keely said as she crossed the room and placed her hands on her desk. Via slowly walked over and gently put a hand on her shoulder. Keely looked up at the mirror, focusing on Via's reflection. "I just..."

"I know, honey, it's tough. I wish I could tell you that I understand, but I know that I don't. I'll probably never know what you and Phil had. I'd consider myself lucky to ever have something like it."

Keely, to her own surprise, felt a little better at the fact that Via didn't feel it was necessary to lie to her.

"But I'm just... I'm worried that you're not going to get over this - over him. I mean, honestly, it's been—"

"I know how long it's been," Keely muttered, cutting her off. "I know exactly how long it's been..."

"...and you're still hanging onto these.... these memories... It can't be good for you, Keely..."

"You don't even know, Via," Keely said, shaking her head. "You couldn't possibly know what we had."

"Be that as it may, I still know an unhealthy obsession when I see one. I'm not saying you need to forget about him, I'm just suggesting that maybe you need to move on."

"You can't be seriously telling me to do that," she sighed, pacing back and forth. "You know how much—"

"I'm aware. You've made me _pain_fully aware." Via paused as she saw Keely bite her bottom lip. "Look, I'm sorry, but... it's been so long, Darling. I know you're trying, but part of me knows you just don't want to let go of him..."

_More like can't let go..._

"Of course I want to let go, Vee! Do you think I _like_ being miserable?"

"I didn't mean to imply—"

"Because I don't! It kills me every day, Vee... and I'm trying to move on, I really am, but it's just that..."

"You don't want to."

"I _can't_!"

"_Yes_ you _can_! You just don't _want_ to!"

Keely shook her head. She didn't have to put up with this. She didn't have to listen to this garbage. "Just go."

"No, Keely, listen, I—"

"I'd really like you to leave right now. And not come back."

Via sighed and rolled her head back. "You know what, fine. I suppose if you want me to leave, I'll leave. But just remember that I'm _trying_ to help you, here."

Keely sat back down on her bed as the door closed after her friend left. She looked up at the blank TV screen and hesitantly reached over.

_It's okay. I'm just... reminiscing. That's all. There's nothing wrong with that._

She pressed the play button again.

_I'm allowed to be happy. Isn't that one of our natural-born rights? So I should just do whatever I need to make myself happy._

_Even if it kills me every time I watch it? Is the empty pit in my stomach worth the fluttery feeling I'll get for a while?_

She sighed as the video ended. Of course it was worth it. She would try and convince herself otherwise, knowing that she was clinging onto an empty dream, that Via was right, that she was trying to live in her past, and that she'd never be able to recapture it, but the memories were all that she had left anymore.

She set the video back to the start and watched it again. It all seemed so... off...

The grass wasn't as green as she'd remembered it. The sky wasn't as blue, her clothes weren't as vibrant, his laughter wasn't as joyful: it was all wrong, somehow. Somehow it didn't fit. It seemed so much more watered down than her memory of the day.

_It couldn't be that my memories are actually... better than it actually was, can it?_

_Of course not.... that's silly...._

"It's so windy out here!" the Keely on the screen exclaimed over the whipping of the wind over the microphone. "....can you hear me?"

"I hear ya fine, Keel. We're good to go."

She shook her head and turned the video off, unable to get past the fact that there was something wrong with it somehow.

_I think what's wrong with it is that it's not real anymore. Just a twisted fading memory._

She sprang up and headed downstairs, quickly announced, "I'm goin' to the park, Mom," and was out the front door before Mandy could tell her to be back for dinner.

She barely even remembered her slow, undisturbed walk to the park once she got there. The grass was still green, for now, though as it was already autumn the colors were beginning to fade. A gentle breeze blew, hardly noticeable to her. The trees only moved slightly from the wind. The kids across the park laughed as they swung across monkey bars and skated down slides. Still, she felt it was empty, and she knew exactly why.

She was alone. Nobody there to hold her hand, nobody there to walk home with her, nobody there to record her antics at a local park. Every time she would try and replace him with someone else, she'd find herself comparing the two, and she'd always end up regretting getting together with someone else.

Maybe that's why everything seemed so much more gray. There was nobody else there to brighten it up.

She looked at her phone and discovered that her aimless wandering around the park had killed nearly an hour. She turned on her heel and headed home. Dinner still wouldn't be for another hour, but she didn't have much better to do.

_Maybe he'll come back tomorrow. Maybe a week from now._

_And maybe Tia will make it into MIT. And maybe Seth will marry her._

_No... I can't believe that... he will come back... sometime..._

Troubled, she picked up a copy of _Pygmalion_ by George Bernard Shaw and started reading lines.

* * *

Today's discussion: Facebook is lame.

okay maybe that is not a discussion but it had to be said**  
**


	5. Paper Airplanes: Makeshift Wings

"So what have you got planned for the rest of the day?" Tia asked as she met up with Keely outside of her last class: physics.

"Mm. Homework, mostly," Keely mumbled. "Apparently Miss Way thinks it's fun to have us do lab write-ups and posters."

Tia winced and sucked in her breath through her teeth. "Eesh... want any help on that?"

"You're.... not in my class," Keely said, raising an eyebrow. "I don't know how much that would help."

"Oh. Right..."

"Thanks anyway, though, I guess," Keely shrugged. Tia nodded and grinned broadly.

"No problem, Keely. Really. So I guess we can...."

Keely blinked, and slowed down her pace. _Did it just get darker in here?_

"Keely? You okay?" Tia asked, having stopped a few paces in front of her.

Keely put her hands out in front of her, reaching through the darkness, and eventually found Tia through the black fog. She staggered to her right and leaned against a wall.

"Whoa, whoa, Keely, what's up?" Tia reached forward and grabbed onto Keely's shoulders. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head from side to side to try and snap herself out of her haze. "Huh? Yeah, I'm fine. Just got a little dizzy, I guess. I'm fine now."

"Are you sure?" Tia asked, looking at her friend with concern.

"I'm totally fine," Keely reassured her, wiping her eyes. "Don't worry about me."

Tia looked Keely up and down, then slowly nodded. "Right... you're sure nothing's wrong?"

_The very fact that you have to even ask__ that obviously tells me that you can't be bothered enough to tell when your best friend is going through some major issues. _

"Nothing. Is wrong. Okay? Just got a little dizzy."

"...if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but you know that you can at least admit to me if something's wrong, right? I mean, you don't have to _lie_ to me."

Keely put her palm to her forehead, rubbing her temple with her fingertips. "Yeah, Tia, I know. But it's no big deal. I'm not lying. And even if it was a big deal, it's not like you can help me with it."

"...You do realize you pretty much just told me exactly what's bothering you, right?"

"...okay, so? You're not going to go on a Via Rant, are you?"

"Look, I'm not telling you how to live your life. I know that you feel like you'd never meet another guy like him if you could live for a thousand years—"

_Not exactly_, Keely thought amusedly.

"—but don't think that just because he moved back to... where was it you said he went again?"

"North Dakota," Keely prompted.

"...Yeah, but don't think just cause he went there that you're not allowed to love anyone else."

Keely sighed. "But what if he came back?"

Tia stopped, trying to think of a kinder way to tell the poor girl in front of her that it wasn't going to happen.

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter," she choked out, after swallowing the lump in her throat. "I think it's just that... I tried to get with somebody too soon, and that just... I wasn't ready for it."

"You were... dumping water out of the boat, instead of fixing the leak," Tia slowly muttered. Keely nodded.

"So poetic all of a sudden, Tia?" she asked, a smile briefly flashing across her face. Tia just shrugged.

"Well. Call me anytime you need to talk, okay? Day or night. I know you have your family but sometimes you just can't tell them everything, I know."

"Thanks," Keely said, tugging at her sleeves.

"Mmhmm. But for now, I'm gonna go, so I'll see you... tomorrow, then, since you have to work on that project..."

"Sure thing," Keely said as Tia went in for a quick hug. She gave her a brief squeeze back, and in a blink, she was gone.

Keely slowly looked around. She was standing outside the auditorium. Voices were coming out from behind a door, slightly ajar. Keely crept in.

_Oh, lo and behold, the Scene Queen herself, Liz Fox._

"What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?" she recited from the stage. Keely watched with a disapproving sneer. "Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much? Con–"

"No!" the director interrupted. "No!" Keely tried to lean forward and hear what he said as he walked up from his chair towards the stage, but was too far back to make anything out. She noticed that Liz had spotted her, and was trying to tell who was watching the rehearsal, but was then reprimanded for not paying attention to the director.

Keely smirked.

"Try it again!" the director announced as he went back to his chair.

Liz started reciting her lines again, but Keely, sick of the histrionics, quietly slipped out the door.

"I didn't even want to be in that stupid play anyway," Keely muttered to herself.

_What was that story about the fox and the grapes again?_

_Well, whatever, at least I can take comfort knowing I would've been better than she's doing now._

She continued to amuse herself with thoughts of Liz crashing and burning onstage as she walked home, not really paying attention to the warm breeze blowing past her or the sun shining on her back.

_Hope she enjoys soaring over me right now, because those makeshift wings of hers won't last much longer up there._

- - -

"Bonnie, would you mind helping me with dinner?" Mandy called from the kitchen.

"Ssssssure, Ma," Bonnie replied slowly as she stood up from the couch in the living room. Just as she set down her Philosophy textbook, Keely walked in slowly and put her sweater on the hook by the door. "Actually," Bonnie added, upon seeing her sister, "Keely said she wanted to help you out earlier today."

"Oh, great! Keely, get your butt in here!" Mandy called out, as Keely gave Bonnie a confused look.

"I did?" she asked her younger sister, raising an eyebrow.

"Look," Bonnie said, putting a hand to her sister's cheek and brushing her auburn hair out of her face, "you're gonna get in there and you're gonna talk to her about what's going on, okay? I don't care if you don't resolve anything, I just think you need to open up to someone before you explode. Got it?"

Keely pursed her lips and slowly nodded. "Alright. I'll do it."

"You can thank me later. I accept checks and all major credit cards." Bonnie smirked at her sister before cracking open her book again. Keely headed off to the kitchen.

"There you are, Honeycomb! Say, could you go ahead and cut up those onions for me and add them to the stew?"

"Mmhmm. Sure thing." Keely groaned internally at the prospect of cutting up onions.

_Great. Now she's gonna think I'm crying. Why should I have to cut up the onions?_

_Or. Maybe it's better that way. Cause if I really do cry, I can blame__ it on the onions. Hmm..._

Her train of thought was derailed by the unavoidable question, "How was your day?"

"Um, fine," Keely said passively, ignoring the fact that she had nearly passed out earlier. Her stomach growled slightly to remind her of the fact.

"Anything interesting happen? Nothing worth talking about?"

"Mm. Not so much, no," Keely said after a pause. "Just the usual stuff, really. Same stuff, different day."

_Didn't Bonnie get me to do this just so I would talk to Mom about something?_

"Well, guess that's good to hear then!" Mandy said as she searched the cabinets.

"Mmhmm," Keely replied. _Well, that's what she wanted to do, though, not what I wanted to do. There's a difference._

"So why did you want to help out?" her mother asked.

Keely cringed. She couldn't very well admit that she didn't want to, so she searched blindly for an excuse. "Oh, you know, felt like I needed something to do, I guess."

_Yeah, this isn't going to work. This was never going to work._

Minutes later, but not many, Bonnie snapped her book shut and leaned back, sinking into the couch. "Hate. Statistics," she muttered to herself.

"What's that?" Keely asked as she walked by, having just finished helping out her mother.

"Oh, I just– just thinking about how I– it... i-it-it's not important. So. Did you..."

A brief pause. "Did I...?"

"...talk to Mom at all? About what's bothering you, maybe?"

"Oh, that. I just... it's not that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do to me, it's just... Talking doesn't help. Just brings back too many painful memories."

"...huh."

"What?"

"Nothing, it's just that... nothing."

"It's obviously not _noth_ing..."

"...Since when has talking _not _helped you?"

Keely gave her sister a disapproving stare before letting out a sarcastic laugh. "You're a riot. Look, I know you don't get it now, but it's just too soon."

"Five months is too soon? You can't be serious."

She heaved a deep sigh and shook her head. "That's okay. I didn't expect you to understand."

The sisters fell silent. Keely slowly walked to the staircase. Bonnie eventually piped up. "Have you even _tried_ talking about it with anyone?"

The older sister paused, her left foot on the first step, and considered her answer.

* * *

**Catching on yet? Or have I just taken a swan-dive off the deep end?**


	6. The Great Disappointment

"Keely, you've got a little..." Via pointed to the tip of Keely's nose, which was spotted with frosting from a cupcake she was eating.

"Mmh." Keely rubbed her upper lip. "Did I get it?"

"No, it's your nose," Tia said, laughing. Keely frowned and wiped at the side of her nose with a napkin.

"No, it's– I'll get it," Via said, leaning forward and reaching across the table, dabbing at Keely's nose with a napkin. Keely's eyes tracked down to Via's hand.

"I can't deal with all this estrogen," Owen said aside to Seth. "We're outnumbered now. Phil was a pretty quirky guy, but at least he balanced us out, you know? Ow!"

Owen's comments were silenced by Via elbowing him in the ribs. "Honestly, Owen, you can be so insensitive sometimes. I'm sorry, Keely," she said, turning away from Owen. "You know how he is."

Keely shook her head. "It's okay. Just cause I miss him doesn't mean we can't talk about him, right?"

Via shrugged and nodded. "I don't really see why not. That is, if you're comfortable with it..."

Keely offered a lopsided smirk. "I'm _okay_, Via. I'm totally fine."

"Glad to hear it," the Brit responded with a grin.

"So if we found someone to sort of balance out the ratio here, then it'd be-- OW!" Owen let out another grunt as Via's elbow collided with his ribs again.

"I don't _think_ Owen was suggesting we re_place_ him," Via said, giving Owen a reproachful look. He just winced as he rubbed his side.

Keely laughed as she rested her cheek on her hand. "You two..."

"Us two? You mean him and me? No, no, there's no 'us two'. There's no 'we'."

"Sure there's not." Keely grinned as Via's cheeks flushed slightly with color.

"Come off it," Via said, shaking her head.

"I know, I know," Keely said, raising her hands, "he's impossible to deal with and you'll never be with him." Via smirked and nodded.

Keely checked her phone for the time. "Mm, well, I'm gonna get going a few minutes early. I have to stop by Mr. Lombardi's class to pick up that make-up work..."

"Okay," Via said, glancing at Tia and Owen, who were engrossed in a conversation. "I'll see you after school, though."

"Yeah, sure thing. Later, Vee. See ya, Seth."

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, see ya," Seth said, looking up from his open calculus book. Via turned to talk to him as Keely got up and left, and he quickly slapped his book shut and turned his focus to her.

Keely spent the five minutes before class in the restroom. She stared at her reflection intently, studying the cold look in her eyes.

_Am I really fooling any of them?_

She turned on the water and washed her face. Water ran down her cheeks and dripped off the tip of her nose. She stared intently at herself in the mirror again. The bell rang. She sucked in her breath through her teeth.

"Showtime." She forced a smile onto her face and grabbed a paper towel to dry off.

- - -

"Hello?" Tia answered her phone, holding it against her cheek with her shoulder as she typed away on her computer, finishing an essay for her English class due in the morning.

Sobbing came from the other end of the line.

"Keely? Are you okay?"

"He– he–..."

"Keely, what's wrong? What happened?"

"He's leaving. He's moving, Tia."

"...You mean for good this time? Because—"

"_Yes_, for good," Keely snapped. "I wouldn't be calling you like this if we didn't know for sure."

Tia let out a sigh, and stood up from her computer, taking her phone in her right hand. "I'm... I'm really sorry to hear that, Keely..."

"This can't be happening... what do I do, Tia?"

"There's... there's really not much you can do, is there? I mean, it's not like you can just... move with him..."

"I know that, Tia... I– I– I just, I can't believe this is happening... I can't handle this, Tia!"

Tia bit her lip. There was nothing she could do to help. Keely had come to her in her hour of desperation and there wasn't a thing she could do to make her friend feel better. "Well, I mean, couldn't you still call him up, though? I mean—"

"It's not _like_ that, Tia! I just– I mean, it's not the same... It's never going to be the same..."

"I... I'm sorry. Really, I am, hon. I just..."

"I don't know what to do, Tia..."

"...Enjoy your last days together?"

"...I don't even know if I can do that... knowing it'll be over so soon..."

Tia heaved another sigh. "Give me a few minutes. I'm coming over."

Keely let out a shaky breath and disconnected the call. She drew her legs towards her body, hugging her knees tightly. She let her head drop forward and shut her eyes tightly, trying to keep her sobbing silent, so her family wouldn't hear.

"How could I have let this happen?.... I knew this was the only way this could end... He could never stay here. But I let myself fall in love with him anyway..."

She chewed her bottom lip some more, fiercely blinking back tears. She knew it couldn't have been Phil's fault. It had to be hers.

_But he fell in love with me too... it can't be all my fault..._

_Or maybe I'm just telling myself that to convince myself that it's not my fault. But I still fell for him, either way. And I had to have known he could never stay here. So yeah, it is my fault._

The doorbell rang. Keely started to get up when she heard her sister call out, "I got it!" from downstairs, and slowly sat back down on her bed, hugging her legs. Tia knocked on the door, and Keely told her to come in.

"Hey," Tia said softly as she saw Keely huddled into a ball. "How you holding up?"

"About as good as I expected to," Keely mumbled. Tia sat down on the bed next to her, and Keely turned her head away, resting her left cheek on her right knee.

Tia sighed softly and put her arm around Keely. "It's okay. I know this must be hard for you..."

"That's barely scratching the surface."

"Mm.... poor Keely... I really am sorry to hear about all this... If there's anything I can do for you, you know you can ask, right?"

"There's not really much I can think of that you can do for me... or that anyone can do for me..."

"That's okay. I wouldn't really know what to do anyway."

Keely let out a small laugh despite herself. "I just...I feel like the only person who ever really loved me for me is leaving..."

"You don't think your family loves you?"

"That's different. I know they do, but that's not the same. You know what I mean."

Tia sighed. "You know, even if you don't feel like anyone does, I can assure you that Phil isn't the only one who loves you. I know it feels like you're the only one who cares about yourself, but that's just not true."

"It sure doesn't feel like it," Keely muttered.

"Just because they're not making a big deal out of it doesn't mean they're not out there. You're not alone, Keely. People love you. Don't forget that. Things will get better. I promise."

"How can you say that?" Keely asked in a heavy whisper.

Tia shrugged and let her hands fall into her lap. "I just... know."

Keely bit her bottom lip and looked out her window. The streetlight on the corner flickered sporadically. A stray cat slinked underneath a mailbox. The sun was down, but the air remained pleasantly warm. Countless stars illuminated the night sky. The stray cat darted across the street upon hearing a dog barking, its fur standing up on end.

"How long are you going to stay here?" Keely asked, bringing herself out of her reverie.

"You mean tonight?" Keely nodded silently. "I don't know. Until morning, I guess. I don't want to just leave you here."

"You don't need to stay all night, Tia... I'm fine. I'm totally okay."

Tia bit her lip. "Well. You're not getting rid of me that easily. Come on. Audio diary mode." Keely slowly looked over at Tia, who mimed a zipper motion across her lips.

She laughed softly, leaned against Tia's shoulder, and sighed, wondering where to begin.

- - -

"..."

He heaved a sigh. "I know. I know you know. Somehow it doesn't make it any easier."

"No. No it doesn't."

She wasn't crying. Her voice wasn't even shaking. She didn't look bothered by the news at all, but he knew her flat affect was just temporary. Maybe the news hadn't sunk in yet, or maybe she just didn't want to break down in front of him, but she wouldn't look shell-shocked forever.

"For good this time," she eventually choked out, not even in the form of a question.

"For good this time," he echoed. She folded her arms over her stomach and looked down, hunched over slightly.

"Of course. Of course this would happen."

"I'm sorry, I just... It's reached the point where we can't—"

"I always wanted to believe that we'd be together forever somehow... guess I just got deceived from the start..."

"No, Keely, that's not what I—"

"You're right. It wasn't you. It was me. I deceived myself into thinking this could've really been something... when I knew this was the only way it would ever really end. Just like it always ends. You're leaving me just like Dad left Mom..."

"It wasn't supposed to be like this, Keel... I would never—"

"I know _you_ would never. But that doesn't really matter, does it? They are, so, you have to. Simple."

"That doesn't make it right," Phil said. He dimly recognized that he felt he was playing the wrong role in this conversation.

"I didn't say it did. I just... I understand what has to be done. Doesn't mean it's right.... _sure_ doesn't mean I like it, but... what can we do?"

"Nothing, other than enjoy what time we have left together..."

Keely looked up at Phil, and he saw a tear silently fall down her cheek.

- - -

"So what's the plan for today?" Phil asked as he walked Keely home.

"Today? Today, we go to the park."

"What's happening at the park? Is the fair back in town?"

She looked over at him. "Now if the fair was in town, wouldn't I say we're going to the _fair_?"

"Maybe. But maybe not. I can never quite tell with you, Keels."

"Hmm, well, after the incident in the Hall of Mirrors last time, I don't really think another night at the fair is _ever_ going to happen."

"I've told you a hundred times by now that wasn't _my_ fault!"

"You just keep telling yourself that, Phil," Keely said as they walked up the sidewalk to her house. "Believe the lie."

"It's not a lie, it's the untarnished _truth_!"

Keely laughed and opened the front door. "Mom's not home right now," she explained.

"Right. Is she at the park? Is this some sort of surprise party? You know it's not my birthday, right? _No_ day is my birthday, actually."

"I know, I know, you emerged from your natal pod at exactly midnight on June 28th..." Keely tossed her backpack on her bed and picked up a video camera. "You can drop your stuff here, if you want. You won't be needing your anatomy textbook."

"Right," Phil said, dropping his bag next to Keely's. "Guess... to the park now, then?"

"Mmhmm!" Keely nodded perkily, headed out of her room, and glided down the stairs, with Phil following quickly behind her.

"So what gave you this idea, anyway?" Phil asked after a brief silence.

"Nothing. Or everything. Or you. I'm not sure."

Phil smirked. "That really doesn't tell me anything, Keels."

"Can't you be patient?" she asked with a laugh. "Honestly, Phil, you'll find out what we're doing soon enough..."

"That's not soon enough!" Phil protested. Keely let out a giggle.

"Can we change the subject or something? The longer you ask about what we're doing, the longer it's going to take to get there."

Phil let out a sigh and folded his arms over his chest. "Fine," he said, in his best imitation of Keely.

"Was that supposed to be me? Just what are you trying to say, Phil Diffy?"

"I'm Keely and I make Phil tell me everything, but—"

Keely interrupted him with a laugh and a playful hit on the shoulder. "You're such a dork, Phil!"

"Okay, okay," he said, chuckling to himself, "I'm done. I promise."

It was a gusty afternoon, but warm and sunny. The trees along the edge of the park waved their leaves invitingly as the two teens walked down the street.

"Now what would be a good spot..." Keely mulled over her options as she surveyed the grass. Phil stopped by a tree which had their names carved into its trunk. He smiled, and opened his mouth to call out to Keely, but she was already beckoning him over to the top of a small hill.

"What's up, Keel?" he asked, walking up beside her.

"This spot. It's perfect," she said, gesturing to a small sapling no taller than ten feet swaying in the breeze. "Set it up."

"Set it up? Set _what_ up?"

"The shot, you dork!" she replied, pointing to the camera still in his hand.

"Oh, right! Uh, so yeah, let me just... set up this shot here..." Phil took a few steps backwards, then turned around and investigated the camera, trying to hide the fact that he didn't have a clue what he was doing.

"Need a little help, there?" Keely's teasing voice rang out from behind him.

"No, I totally got this," he answered. She clearly didn't buy it, and walked over to him.

"Let me help there, Science Genius Boy." Her hand gently brushed over his and flicked the switch from "off" to "record".

"I totally knew to do that. Um... why's the screen still black?" He looked up to Keely for guidance.

She laughed softly and took a step closer to him. He slowly leaned towards her when she softly said, "Try taking the cap off the lens..."

Phil slowly looked down at the camera and did as she suggested. "Oh, would you look at that..." he said to himself, looking at the trees and the grass in the small screen.

"Okay, Phil, stay with me here," she said, now standing by the tree again. "Now set up the shot. Make me look good."

"Ah, you already look perfect," he said with a wave of his hand. "Now what are you going to do here?"

Keely grinned. "Just hit record, dork."

"Alright, so just... so the red one, yeah? Wait... Wait, is it on?"

"Uh, yeah. Did you think the big red light meant it was off?"

"Well, sorry, I'm not really used to using these," he said, dripping with sarcasm.

"It's not that complicated, though."

He waved away her criticisms with his free hand. "Okay, so just, do whatever it is that you do, then..."

Keely stood up tall and cleared her throat, clasping her hands in front of her. "Hi, I'm Kee– wait..." She let out an annoyed sigh. "It's so windy out here!" A particularly strong gust of wind came as if on cue, and she brushed a strand of her hair out of her face. "I want this to be perfect. Can you hear me?"

"I hear ya fine, Keel. We're good to go."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure the wind's calming down anyway."

"Okay..." She recomposed herself and looked straight into the camera lens. "Hey there... It's me, Keely... And these are ten reasons why I love Phil Diffy."

Phil turned his focus from the framing of the shot up to the beaming blonde up on the hill. He grinned back at her broadly.


	7. Death of Seasons

"Hey, Keely, I'm gonna hang out with Felicia and a few other friends... you want to come along?"

Keely raised her head off her pillow to look at her younger sister and pulled one of her headphones out of her ear. "Huh?"

"I'm going out with a few friends. I wanted to know if you wanted to come with me."

"Oh. Uh, thanks, but I think I'll pass." Keely smiled and let her head fall back on her pillow.

"Um... you sure about that? You haven't really been out of the house lately. Mom's worried about you. _I'm_ worried about you."

"What worry? There's no need to worry about me, I'm totally okay."

"Well, she just thought it would be a good idea to try and get you into going out. She said you haven't been yourself lately."

"Of course I've been myself! Who else would I be? You?"

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Can we stop with the deflections? Are you _sure_ you don't want to go out tonight?"

"Absolutely. Not really in the mood tonight."

"You haven't really been in the mood for a couple of weeks now. I mean, you know I'm here for you, yeah?"

"I know. Now go be here for me somewhere else."

The younger sister heaved a sigh. "You know, you can't just lie back and expect things to change on their own; you've got to _be_ the change you want to see in the world."

Keely raised an eyebrow as she heard her sister's advice. "Who said that?"

"Who said what?"

"'Be the change you want to see in the world'."

"I did."

"No you didn't."

"Yeah I did."

"When?"

"Just now."

"No, earlier!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Keely rolled her eyes. "Never mind."

"Come on. Come with us! It'll be fun!"

"I'm too tired," Keely lied. "I didn't get enough sleep last night."

"Just come out with us!"

"I just don't want to, okay?! Now will you leave me alone? Get out!"

"I—" She fell silent, looking at her older sister pityingly. "...Okay. If you're sure..." Bonnie slowly walked out of the room, then softly shook her head and shut the door.

Once the door closed, Keely moaned. _That was a little much, wasn't it? She was just trying to cheer me up... Even if I didn't want to go out with them, the least I could have done was been nice about it. Maybe I should've just sucked it up and gone anyway...?_

_No, I did the right thing. Someone would have ruined it. Maybe not one of her friends. Maybe not her, maybe not me. But someone would have. _

_Isn't that the kicker? Someone always comes along to ruin something. Just when I think I've finally found a quiet place or something, or if I'm just in the company of friends, some moron will come along and say something stupid or hurtful to me. It'll probably happen when I die. At my funeral, someone will say something rude about me. I just know it._

Her phone sat invitingly on her dresser. She reached over and picked it up, browsed through the contacts, and hit the dial button.

"Hey there—" The voice on the other end was quickly cut off by Keely.

"Vee, hey, listen, sorry if I'm interrupting something, but–..." Keely trailed off as she heard the voice continue.

"...sorry I missed you, but just leave a message and I'll get back to you. Ta-ta..."

Keely sighed as she heard a beep. "Uh, hey, Via. Sorry I missed you. Okay, um... um... okay, I don't really know where to, um... can you just... sorry... yeah, can you just call- call me back when you get this?"

She quickly disconnected and set her phone down on her desk. Her eyes slowly tracked around the room, eventually falling on the lights coming from the house across the street.

She threw back her curtains and opened her window. The cool fall air blew past her as she stepped out onto the roof and sat down. She turned her face skyward and gazed at the stars, so dimly glowing in the night sky.

The air was cool, but dry. The streetlights were bright, but the light was impersonal, cold, almost dead. The leaves still on the trees blew softly in the wind, but the façade of the house sheltered her from the breeze.

A falling star tracked down through the sky, leaving a dim trail immediately behind it. Her eyes tracked the fading light until it disappeared, burning up completely in the atmosphere. She sighed deeply and brought a hand to her face, rubbing her eyebrows.

_If Bonnie was really worried about me, I mean __really_ _worried, she wouldn't have taken no for an answer. Or, even better, she would've stayed here with me instead of going out._

_Although... why should she have to be miserable with me?_

_No, that's not even the point. She left. She __knew__ I wasn't feeling alright and she still left._

_Even if I did kind of blow up at her, she should have realized. She should have taken that as a cry for help, if anything._

_Right, an angry outburst as a cry for help. Can you blame her for walking away? I would've done the same thing._

Stars blinked in and out, seemingly dancing in her vision.

She heard someone step out onto the roof behind her. She glanced down at her feet, then took a breath and sighed. "What happened to Felicia and all of them?" she asked, without even looking back. _Maybe I'm dumb,_ she mused.

"They'll be fine without me. I'm not entirely convinced you will be. Mind if I have a seat?"

"Go ahead. It's not _my_ roof."

Bonnie slowly sat down next to Keely and stretched her legs out in front of her. "So what's up? Why are you being so schizoid?"

Keely leaned her head back. "Rough day, I suppose."

"I don't– ....why, what happened today?"

"Got held up at the coffee shop."

"Held up?" Bonnie's voice was suddenly filled with cautious concern.

"You know, it took a while to close. Josie wanted to talk to me for a while, is all."

"Oh... I thought you meant like, a stick-up."

"Oh, no," Keely said with a chuckle. "Not a chance."

"Okay... so.... how are you holding up about..."

"About.... what?" Keely asked, despite the fact that she knew what was coming.

"You know, regarding... Phil..." Bonnie eventually said, frowning after she saw her sister's eyes mist over with the mention of the boy's name.

"Fine. Fine as I could ever be."

"You don't mean that. You know it's not true."

Keely shook her head. "So I'm not completely over it. I'm getting there. Isn't that all that matters? Do you really need to check in on me every other day?"

"I wouldn't need to if you would just open up to me for once instead of shutting me out like this."

"I'm not shutting you out."

"Then prove it. Tell me exactly how you feel."

Keely heaved a deep sigh and turned to her sister. "You want to know how I feel? Fine. I miss him, okay? I miss him a _lot_. Every time I see a happy couple or a boy looking at me that way, part of me can't stop thinking about him. And I hate it. It's like... part of me just wants to erase him from my life."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because I loved him, alright? And now I'll never see him again."

"Well, sure, but you've got to learn to love your hate, Keely..."

"'Love your hate'?"

"You know... appreciate the bad things in your life as well as the good. You have to experience failure before you can appreciate success. You have to endure the lowest of the low before you can really embrace true happiness. And you can't really embrace true love before you go through heartbreak."

"Heart_break_," Keely emphasized. "My heart doesn't feel _brok_en, it feels... destroyed. I don't want to have to feel like this. It's reached the point where I try to avoid anything and everything that reminds me of him."

"Guess that explains a lot... like why you gave up broadcasting when he left..." Bonnie muttered, more to herself than to Keely.

Keely turned her head back up to the skies.

"You know, you didn't change, Keely. Your situation changed, sure, but you didn't. You didn't need to reinvent yourself like this."

"Yeah, I did. You might not get it now, but—"

"No! I don't get it now, and I never will get it, because it _doesn't make sense_! Would you stop telling me that?"

Keely bit her lip. "Okay, fine. It's just... I mean... you know how they say you'll know if it's true love?"

Bonnie nodded. "Sure, but—"

"Well, I _knew_, Bonnie... I just... I feel so... incomplete, I guess. I don't know."

"Hmm..." Bonnie stood up again, looking down at Keely. "Well, you're making it painfully obvious that this is either something I can't help you with, or more likely something you won't _let_ me help you with, so I'm just gonna leave you with this... time heals everything. It won't hurt so much after a while. I promise that."

"But it's been so long already..."

"Well... it could take about as long as you were with him... maybe longer, maybe shorter. There's no set time, Keely, it just... it takes as long as it takes. Don't rush yourself."

Keely nodded. Her sister knelt beside her and hugged her, and Keely gave a one-armed hug in return.

Bleary-eyed, Keely looked back up at the sky.

_Even the stars are weeping_, she thought to herself, though still aware that the tears were her own.

Weeping stars... an empathetic night sky... Nature mourning the loss of happiness.

A noise from inside caught her attention. She climbed back in through the window and noticed her phone buzzing on her desk.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Keely, are you okay?"

"...Yeah, why?"

"Oh, good," Via sighed in relief. "It's just, the message you left, you sounded a little troubled."

"Mm. Just a long day, I guess."

"Yeah, I reckon so. So what did you want to talk about?"

"I... don't remember, actually," Keely said with a small frown.

"... you _sure_ you're okay?"

Keely pressed her lips together and rubbed her forehead with the heel of her free hand. "Positive. Sorry to bother you."

"Keely I—"

Keely disconnected the call and stepped back out onto the roof.

"At least it's night," she muttered to herself. _Nobody around._

She angrily kicked a few leaves off the roof and watched as they floated gently to the ground.

Fighting off a sudden urge to scream, she dug her fingernails into her palms and swallowed back an angry lump rising in her throat. She slammed her fists against her thighs and let out a desperate sigh, running her fingers through her hair.

She kicked another leaf off the roof and retreated back inside.


	8. Girl's Not Grey

Keely scribbled away in her notebook absent-mindedly. She was hoping to make herself feel better by at least confessing her feelings some way, but it wasn't working.

_I almost got hit by a car today_, she wrote, _while walking back home from school. If Bonnie hadn't pulled me back, it would've creamed me. I guess I didn't see it. _

_I wish I could say it scared me to realize that I wouldn't have minded dying right there. I didn't really feel scared anyway, like I probably should have. I feel disappointed, in fact. At what, I don't know — the fact that my life is not worth living, the world for creating such an empty life perspective, or the fact that I didn't die. Probably all three._

_I'm a burden on my friends and my family. I see them put up a brave front but I know they don't like dealing with me because I seem so whiny. Because I am so whiny, I guess. I've stopped talking to just about everyone because it's too much effort to put a smile on my face and pretend everything's okay because it's not okay. I can't focus anymore. All I do in class is stare at the wall and wonder what happy people are doing._

_What's next? How can I enjoy a life completely devoid of pleasures? Smiling is too much of a chore. I hardly even eat. I don't really want to; the pain I get in my stomach helps remind me that I am still alive. I can't even appreciate music or art the same way I used to. I always end up inevitably connecting it somehow to my pathetic life, or failing that, my happy life before it became pathetic, which is actually worse._

_I guess that's the main reason why I haven't really reached out to anyone. First off, they'd get alarmed. They'd tell me that my life has meaning (ha! to them maybe, but what about me?), and that they love me very much. After the initial shock would come the sympathy: they would say how sorry they are that I've been feeling so awful about life, and that I should've reached out sooner. But if they really loved me, they would have known something was bothering me! _

_After the shock and sympathy... I don't know. Probably begging. They would tell me that I shouldn't – no, that I can't__ kill myself, because there's so much I have to live for. How is this supposed to inspire hope in my life when they say your teenage years are the best you've got? They'd tell me to see a psychiatrist to sort out my feelings, like it was supposed to magically make me feel better about how cruel the world is. God must have a sick sense of humor. Though that's assuming there's a God in the first place._

_That in mind... What do you do when nobody has an answer to your questions? Who can you go to when you feel nobody cares? How can I get over these feelings about my life?_

_The thing is... I don't even want to be over it. I don't have anything beyond these memories, anyway. Not anything worthwhile, at least. And I can't tell anyone about this, certainly not. I'm used to it._

_I can't tell if I'm crying out for help right now, or if I'm just tacitly admitting that I really am hopeless... maybe that's what they're doing, too. Maybe my life is just meant to be terrible. Maybe their lives would all be happier without me bringing them down. I depress myself with how annoying I must be to all of them. Ugh I'm so pathetic. Above all else I think I just hate myself. _

Keely frowned. Her hand was beginning to cramp up. She dropped the pen and laid down on her bed.

"Stupid hand," she muttered, flexing and stretching her fingers.

The crescent moon peered invasively through her window. Branches from the tree near her window tapped intrusively on the glass. She wrapped a blanket around herself to try and take her mind off the feeling of helplessness that was slowly devouring her.

She cleared her throat and announced to the empty room, "I really miss you, Phil..."


	9. Dancing Through Sunday

The Teslow house was quiet, naturally, as it was two in the morning. Keely sighed. Her stomach growled.

She decided to go downstairs and force herself to eat something. She skillfully avoided the creaking stairs, having memorized them not from the restless nights of late, but more from the times she would stalk down to meet Phil for late-night tomfoolery.

After grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl on the counter, she wandered into the living room and gazed out the bay window. A squirrel scurried across the front yard and stopped at the foot of a tree, then looked around alertly before darting up the tree.

_Lucky squirrel. All you have to worry about is food and shelter._

Before she realized what she was doing, she took out her phone and called Tia.

"Uhhhlo?" a groggy voice on the other line asked. Keely stared at the clock with her mouth halfway open, realizing just how late it was.

"...heeeeeeey, Tia...." _What in the heck am I doing?,_ she wondered.

"....Keely? What time is it?"

"...2:12?"

A sigh came from the other end. "What's wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing's wrong. Just... felt like calling you." _I guess__..._

"It better be good."

Keely's head drooped forward. "Um... I don't– I just can't sleep is all."

"Why not?"

_Because I don't want to wake up tomorrow._

"Because I... I'm not tired."

"You know, if you just get into bed, even if you're not tired now, you'll start getting tired."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm exhausted. And in bed. But still talking to you."

"Oh... sorry... I'll let you get back to sleep."

"No, no, if something's bothering you, please tell me. Please? It must be something or you wouldn't have called at this hour."

"You're mad at me. I don't want to keep you up. It can wait."

"..."

"Tia! It's fine. Go back to sleep."

"..."

"_Please_ don't be mad? It's not even important. Don't worry about it."

"If you're sure."

Keely smiled. "Goodnight, Tia."

"'Night."

_You idiot._

She threw out the empty banana peel and headed back upstairs, this time much less carefully.

_Well I guess it's not like she was fit to listen at this hour. She wouldn't have focused. All the more reason for it. I __will__ make myself heard._

_But is this the way?... _

_I will be noticed again. _

_If he didn't have to leave..._

She looked at herself in the mirror, and saw her face reflected in the pale moonlight shining through the window. Her cheeks didn't have the rosy glow Phil had always talked about, her eyes looked-

...frightened, really. Like a scared little girl... like the scared little girl she was when Mandy held her in her arms at age six, explaining why her daddy wasn't coming back again...

She sighed and laid down on her bed.

_I will be noticed. I will be heard. I will leave a mark, even if it's only because I bleed._

_Kind of comforting, really. Funny. I didn't really expect that._

_..._

_Whaddaya know? I am getting tired. Maybe she was right..._

_She threw her blankets over her and smirked knowingly to herself._


	10. Silver and Cold

A knock sounded on the front door of the Teslow house. Mandy hurried to the front door to answer it.

"Hey, Pumpkin, come on in!" Mandy jovially greeted Tia, waving her arm and stepping to the side.

Tia grinned at Mandy's exuberant enthusiasm. "Hey, Miss T, is Keely here?"

"I think she's up in her room. That girl's been quiet today!"

Tia giggled and headed upstairs. Keely's door was closed, so she knocked twice. "Keely? You in there?" When there was no response, Tia tried the knob. It was unlocked, so she let herself in.

"Keely?" she asked again, hoping to announce her presence, in case Keely was in her bathroom and didn't hear her the first time. Still no response. Tia shrugged and walked down the hall to Keely's sister's room. The door was open, and Bonnie was sitting at her desk, on her computer.

"Hey, Bonnie, where did Keely go?"

Bonnie glanced over her shoulder, and took off her headphones upon seeing Tia in the doorway. "What's that?" she asked.

"Your sister. Where did she go?"

Bonnie opened her mouth to respond before pausing, realizing she didn't know the answer. "She went somewhere? I don't know, probably down to the store, I guess. She didn't say anything to me."

Around the time Tia showed up at the Teslow house, Keely was sitting in the local coffee shop, Cup o' Cino, fidgeting nervously. Across the room sat a man in his early twenties, whom Keely presumed was in college, typing on his MacBook. Over by the wall, a couple seventh graders from her school were making use of the coffee shop's internet connection. The barista occasionally glanced over at Keely, who hadn't ordered anything, and hadn't brought a computer with her.

"Whatcha waitin' for, hon?" the barista eventually asked in a bubbly voice. She had vibrant red hair, and Keely guessed her to be about twenty-one. "I mean, d'you got a date, or are you just hopin' some cute guy will come in and start talkin' to ya?" She giggled at her own joke and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

Keely struggled to put a fake smile on her face. "No," she replied, "just waiting." She glanced at the other people in the shop: the college student had his headphones on, and the kids seemed uninterested in the conversation.

"Somethin' wrong, hon?"

Keely raised an eyebrow and looked back at the barista. "No, why?" She forced out a toothy grin.

"Oh, it's just... I mean, you're smilin' and all, but your eyes aren't smilin'. You know? You sure nothin's botherin' you?"

Keely shrugged. "Not that I can think of." On the contrary, Keely felt better than she had for weeks, maybe months.

"If you're sure..." The barista offered Keely another toothy grin before walking to the back, out of Keely's sight. Keely waited for a minute before picking up her phone. As the phone on the other end of the line rang, she walked out of the coffee shop. The bells hanging from the door jingled softly as she left.

"I'm sure she'll be back soon," Bonnie said. "You can hang out with me if you want."

Tia smiled. "Sure! So what's new?" she asked as she walked to a bean bag in the corner of the room and sat down on it, sinking slowly down.

"Nothing much, just trying to–" Bonnie was interrupted by her phone ringing. "Oh, that's her right now," she said to Tia before answering. "Keely, what's up?"

"Um... I, uh... don't know..." Keely tried to force out the words _how to say this_, but her voice hitched unexpectedly.

"Listen, Tia's over here and she's wondering where you are. Care to tell me?"

Keely sighed. Maybe it would be easier, and better, to lead her sister by the hand into this rabbit hole. "Um... well, I just left the coffee shop..."

"Oh, so you're coming back?"

"..." Keely searched for the right words as she walked down the sidewalk.

"Keely? Are you there? Are you coming back?"

"I'm— ...No," she said, after a pause.

"Okay, so where are you going?" Bonnie drummed her fingers on her desk as she leaned forward.

"... Away," Keely said after a beat. "I just... I don't think I can do this anymore..."

"So, you..." Bonnie slowly trailed off, looking out the window. "...what?"

"What's going on?" Tia asked.

"Look, Bonbon, I'm really sorry..."

Bonnie bolted up in her seat. "Keely, don't," she urged. "Please, _please _think about what you're doing." Tia tilted her head slightly to the side, curiously.

Keely went on, completely ignoring her sister. "It's not your fault. I just.. I don't know. I guess this is the only escape I see left."

"Keely, please, don't. You don't have to do this." Tia didn't like the direction this conversation was heading.

She kept walking on, ignoring her sister's pleas. "Almost there... I'm on Rio Vista right now," she noted, looking up at the street sign. "Don't feel bad. They say drowning is the most peaceful way to go..."

"Keely, just th—" Bonnie stopped abruptly. Tia frowned. "Keely, just wait. Please. I'm coming right now." Bonnie dropped her phone and grabbed Tia by the wrist, telling her, "Keely's gonna jump. We need to go."

Tia scrambled to sit up as Bonnie flew out her bedroom door and down her stairs two at a time. "Wait, wait! What do you _mean _'jump'?"

"Oh nooooo no no no no no no no," Bonnie muttered as she dashed down the stairs and into her mother's study, only to find it empty. "No...."

"Bonnie, what do you mean 'jump'?" Tia repeated as she reached the ground floor. Bonnie crossed the living room floor, reached Tia in two deliberate strides, and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt.

"What do you _think _I mean? I mean she's on the bridge and she's gonna jump!"

The bridge in question was a fairly old part of Pickford heritage; it was made completely of stone, mostly concrete. It connected the small town of Pickford on the south bank and Pickford's farming district on the north. The railing on which Keely stood, looking down at the shimmering water, was wide and sturdy. Still, she had a hand on the adjacent lamppost, almost as if to steady herself.

Having never stood on the bridge before, she was initially shocked to see how high above the water it was. She inched to the edge of the ledge and kicked one of her sandals off, then started counting silently. It barely took three seconds to hit the water. She couldn't tell if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

_I guess it isn't really that high..._

"You're- you're not serious. You can't be..." The brunette searched the blonde's eyes, hoping she'd see something other than fear and dread, but she didn't.

Bonnie gave Tia an incredulous scoff before pushing her aside, calling her "useless" and storming out the front door.

"No, come back!" Tia ran out after the younger girl and grabbed her by the shoulder. "Look, we'll just go back to my house. We'll take my car there, okay? She's gonna be alright."

Bonnie was in hysterics, and could do little more than nod at what Tia was saying. Tia took a deep breath and grabbed Bonnie's hand, leading her running down the street to her house.

Keely had set her phone and bag down by her bare feet on the railing on the bridge (she had kicked off her other sandal to make sure she counted correctly the first time). The cool concrete felt invigorating.

_I wonder how cold it is. Maybe I'll go into shock when I hit._

_Is that good or bad? I mean... I guess there won't be a chance of a survival instinct kicking in if I do... so I guess it's good..._

"I only ask that you can forgive me... Bonnie, Ashley, Mom, Via, Tia... Dad... Phil... all of you... please forgive me..." she muttered softly. The rumbling of an engine caught her attention. She looked over to see a produce truck coming down the road from the farming district.

"Please forgive me..." she sighed, focusing back on the water.

She had come this far.

Tia took a hard left onto Rio Vista. Ahead on the right, perpendicular to the street they were on, was Pike's Bridge. Bonnie could make out Keely standing on the ledge, right in the center of the bridge.

Keely's head turned up slightly as she heard the squealing tires announce the approaching car. She looked out towards the horizon. _Why did I call her in the first place?..._

She cast her eyes back down to the water shimmering beneath her, so silver and cold. She could nearly hear it calling her name.

Brakes screeched, tires squealed, and the horrible sound of rending metal pierced Keely's eardrums. She looked back out to the horizon. Without even having to look, her stomach plummeted.

A few people in a nearby market came out after hearing the collision. While the store manager called for an ambulance, some of the customers walked over to examine the wreck. The only one involved in the accident that was conscious was the truck driver, though he was quite disoriented.

A siren rang off in the distance. As the shoppers checked on the wreck, Keely slowly stepped down from the bridge and walked down the sidewalk, not even daring to look over her shoulder at the aftermath of the accident.

* * *

(I always get excited when a movie says its own title in the movie.)


	11. Bleed Black

"Hey, Mrs. Blackburn, is Via home?" Keely felt mildly like a '60s sitcom character as the words came out of her mouth.

"Oh, come on in, Keely, she's up in her room." The brunette woman smiled and stepped aside, allowing Keely to walk past.

"Thanks," Keely said, offering a lopsided grin back. She headed upstairs, nodding her head to the music coming from upstairs. She walked slowly down the hall and looked into Via's room.

"_Sooooo, understand... Don't waste your time always searching for those wasted yeeeears..._" Via's voice flowed out of the room along with that of Bruce Dickinson. With her back turned to the door, she didn't notice Keely's presence, and kept singing and strumming along on her Fender Aerodyne bass. "_Face u-u-up, make your stand.... And realize you're living in the golden yeeeears......._"

Keely cleared her throat as the song ended, and Via glanced over her shoulder. "Oh, Keely!" she said in surprise, reaching over to turn off her stereo. "Didn't hear you come in," she continued as she pulled the strap off over her head and set the guitar on her bed. "I heard about everything... how are you doing?"

"I'm not the one in a coma," Keely said, with an obvious degree of bitterness to her voice.

"Oh, that poor thing... but Tia's alright, though? I mean, aside from the leg, of course."

"... More or less."

"... and what about you? How are you holding up?"

Keely gazed off, her eyes becoming temporarily distant. "I feel.... guilty."

"That's good."

"How is that good?!"

"It means you care enough about her to feel bad that you caused her pain. It means you still love your sister. That's good. That's keeping you grounded."

"You're sounding like that lousy shrink Mom sent me to this morning..."

Via chuckled softly and moved her bass to its proper stand next to the amp, then sat down on the bed, beckoning for Keely to join her. "At the risk of sounding more like a psychiatrist... is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

Keely shook her head as she stared at the ground. "All I can think about is how she looked in that bed... so bruised and ... helpless, I guess. And how it's my fault."

"The fact that it's bothering you tells me you weren't ready to do what you were about to do..."

"No, I was. It wasn't a snap decision... I just... it was never my intention to get someone else hurt by it... I guess I just wanted to say goodbye to her. A proper goodbye. But I just... seeing her in that bed... it was so awful..."

"That bad?"

"I couldn't keep it together... I don't think I could put her through something like that, her having to see me motionless in a hospital bed... Oh, I just hope she comes out of it soon..."

"That's.... actually very mature, Keely."

Keely bit her lip. "I'm sorry, I'd really rather not talk about this. Got anything else?"

Via took a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh. "Hard to think of anything past that, really..."

Keely, now feeling incredibly awkward and uncomfortable, slowly nodded. Via fidgeted slightly, and noticed that she was holding her breath.

"_They_ could've died," Keely said after a long, uncomfortable silence.

"They care about you. Plenty of people do."

"If they really cared, it wouldn't have taken this long for them to notice."

"Why's that? Why do you say that?"

"... because they should've known something was wrong."

"You don't believe that," Via said, shaking her head.

Keely sighed.

"You felt ignored because _you_ weren't opening up. You didn't reach out. That was a cry for help, Keely. You should be glad someone heard it. You got your wish."

"It wasn't a cry for help. I was ready."

"No you weren't..."

Keely bit her lip and blinked back tears. Via looked around the room, waiting for her friend to speak. "Is it a bad thing..." Keely started, trying to stop her voice from shaking. "...is it bad if I hate myself even more now?"

Via opened her mouth, then hesitated. "I suppose it depends on what the context is."

"I just... seeing Mom standing over her like that, just bawling... knowing it's my fault... I could've stopped it from happening if I had just... found the courage to reach out... I'm so pa_thet_ic!"

"No, you're not... you're actually being incredibly insightful... you clearly weren't ready to let go, Keely... and your mental state has obviously been... well, rather, er, im_pair_ed, lately... but you're recognizing what you did wrong, and that's obviously a good thing... better late than never, right?"

"I hate myself. I hate what I've become. And I hate that nobody can recognize that."

"Dying is no way to send a message like that. Well, maybe it is, but it's a stupid way."

"Now I'm getting treated like a kid... I can't go anywhere alone. Mom's outside in the car, waiting for me. Like I can't be trusted."

"Can you blame her? You should be happy! She's paying attention to you! You're impossible, Keely!"

"...right... ugh. I just... I don't know anymore. I just hate how pitiful I've been... hate what this has turned me into..."

Via sat in tacit assent of Keely's self-deprecation.

"Olivia...?"

"Yes, Keely?"

"Tell me things won't stay this way forever..."

"What way?"

"This way. With.... with me afloat in an ocean, trying so desperately not to sink."

Via sighed and put a hand on Keely's shoulder. "It's gonna change, Keely. It's gonna change. I know right now you're... you're trapped alone in your pain, and no one can understand how badly you're hurting... like there's nothing left you can believe in anymore... like you've been sucked into a... a violent maelstrom."

Keely let out a quivering sigh, and a lone tear tracked down her cheek. She didn't bother to wipe it away.

Via went on. "I wish I could take all of it away from you... just to give you some time, just one day to feel the love you can't right now... I wish I could give you enough strength so that you'd never feel sad again... But I can't."

Keely bit her lip and blinked back another tear that was threatening to escape.

"So just... don't give in. Don't give up, Keely. Just keep going. You'll be better off for it, trust me."

Keely sniffled and slowly stood up. "I... I just want to feel... normal... again..." She decided not to say _human_ instead of _normal_.

"Well, you've got a ways to go, but I think you need to start by letting go."

"But I don't want to..."

"It's tough. I know. But it's the only way..." Via stood up as well and looked up into Keely's watering eyes.

"...I can't!" Keely defended, suddenly on the verge of hysterics.

"_Yes_ you _can!_ I _know_ you can! You've got to let yourself get over him!"

"I can't! You know he was the first boy I ever loved! I just don't get why you're doing this!" Keely shouted, on the verge of completely breaking down into tears.

"Because I love you, you dimwit!"

Keely just stood there, staring open-mouthed at Via.

"Wait, Keely, that's—" Via started, breaking the awkward silence that was hanging in the room.

"I have to go," Keely said, hurriedly, turning on her heel and walking to the door.

"Keely, wait!"

Keely ignored Via and bolted out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door. She shut it quickly behind her and stood against the doorframe, wondering what had just happened.

_She didn't mean...? No..._

Keely laughed to herself.

_No way! Not Via. She still thinks I'm a suicide risk. She's trying to make sure I feel connections to people. That's why she didn't run after me. She didn't want to weird me out or anything._

_...?_

_No, that makes sense._

She looked up and saw her mother sitting in the car, talking on the phone. She slowly stepped off the front porch, and paused, looking up at Via's open window. She couldn't see her, but she could hear her playing along on her bass to Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way".

She smiled and headed to the car. _Good old Via. Always looking out for me._

"Can we go home?" she asked before her mother could say anything. Her mother gave her a worried look, but obliged and decided not to press the matter until after they got home.

She watched the houses and fences roll by as they drove past, nodding her head slightly and rhythmically. She looked out of the corner of her eye at her mother before she started singing under her breath. "_You can go your own way... you can call it another lonely day..._"

* * *

**"Wasted Years" written by Adrian Smith; "Go Your Own Way" written by Lindsey Buckingham; the rest of your relieved boredom written by me.**

**PRO TIP: If you ever have two hours to kill and want to feel like dying at the end of it, just watch the movie **_**Threads**_**. _Horr_ibly disillusioning.**


	12. The Leaving Song, Part II

_I see the world for what it truly is. Nobody else does. This isn't poetry. This isn't music. This is science. This is cold, impersonal science that we are refusing to open our eyes to see. I feel sorry for people, so willing to believe in a beautiful lie rather than face the grim truth._

_So few people are willing to accept this about themselves. They naïvely believe they'll live forever. They don't look for truth. They're satisfied to believe the lie. To put faith in their fake realities. It's sad, really. _

_When will we open our eyes? When will we get sick of kidding ourselves? When will we see the lie behind the beauty? When will we change ourselves? I'm hoping this day will come, but it isn't looking good. And it's looking worse every day._

_People are so selfish. Whatever happened to love and compassion? Why doesn't anyone care about what greed has done to us? _

_We're so unwilling to take a good look at ourselves and realize what needs to be done. Well I know. I know what I have to do._

_Is everyone else ever going to open their eyes?_

She scowled. Pathetic. Helpless. Hopeless. It sickened her. She yanked the scribbled pages she was reading out of the binding of her notebook and shredded them to pieces.

_I need to destroy myself, _she thought,_ so that I can be reborn. I might not be able to send a message through death, but I can sure send one through reinventing myself._

She threw the shredded pieces of paper in the trash, then kicked the trashcan for good measure.

_Who am I?_

_Holding on for the answer... do I really want to know? Am I better off ignorant?_

She sighed and took her trash can downstairs, out the door, and dumped the contents in the green garbage bin on the side of the house. Once Wednesday rolled around, those shredded pages of her life would be carried off to a landfill to slowly waste away in the sun, or be picked at by the birds.

A familiar navy blue Volkswagen Beetle approached Keely's house. She slowly walked onto the sidewalk and grinned, bringing up her right hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

"Hey, Keely," Tia greeted jovially as she rolled up by the sidewalk. "What are you doing?"

"Just... taking care of some trash," she explained, glancing over her shoulder at the house. "You're... driving?"

"Yep. Why does that surprise you?"

"I thought... your leg..."

"Oh, right. Well, that's my left leg though. Besides, I'm not going to let something like that keep me holed up in my house, you know? Plus, the bruised ribs definitely bothered me more than the leg."

"Oh... but they're better now?"

"Well, _bett_er. I'm really lucky, Keely. I'm not trying to stay holed up in my room because of it."

"And you're... okay driving? Your mom isn't totally cheesed that you wrecked her car?"

"Well, it's not like she was happy about it, but given _why_ it happened, she was willing to forgive me. And as for me... it actually doesn't bother me as bad as you might think. Is that weird?"

"Uh, yeah!"

Tia shrugged. "I dunno. I mean, I guess I should've seen that truck. Maybe she should've seen it. But we didn't. I don't... I don't _blame_ either of us. Because we did what we set out to do. You think that's weird?"

"I don't get how you can get behind a steering wheel again so soon..."

"It's not like I'm not afraid... but if you don't face your fears sometime... how can you grow? How can you function?"

Keely bit her lip. "I don't know, maybe you're right. Anyway. What are you up to?"

"Nothing much. I was wondering if you wanted to hang out!"

Keely leaned her head back and gazed up at the sky pensively. Tia drummed her hands on the steering wheel.

"Why not?" Keely said, after looking down and seeing Tia's disappointed expression. She walked around to the passenger's side, opened the door, and hopped in.

"Where do you want to go?"

Keely bit her knuckle as she looked out the window, gazing at the houses as they passed. "Oh, I don't know... hmm... I should call Mom, huh."

Tia grinned slightly. "Yeah, probably."

Keely pulled out her cell phone and called her mother's work phone. "Hey, Mom... Fine, how are you?... Oh okay, yeah, I just called 'cause I'm with Tia right now and I don't know if I'll be back when you get home... Yeah, she just dropped by like a few minutes ago... Um... We're- we're gonna go see Bonbon, Mom... Mmhmm. Yeah, probably her house after... Right... Okay. See you later. Love you."

Tia looked over at Keely curiously.

"What?" Keely defended. "It's been like... three days since I've seen her. Since I've seen anybody, really."

"Why?" Tia asked.

Keely hesitated as her hands picked nervously at each other. "Just haven't gotten out, I guess," she lied.

"...Riiiight..." Tia decided not to press the matter as she pulled onto the highway.

Once she saw the IV hooked into her sister's arm, she remembered why she had been dreading come back to see her.

"Does she look any better? From last time, I mean," Tia added, this having been the first time she had visited. She nudged a chair out of the way with her crutches as she hopped into the room.

"I guess. I mean... I don't know. She still looks...."

Tia nodded as Keely pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down, clasping her hands and resting her elbows on her knees. Tia, suddenly feeling incredibly awkward, glanced around. "Uh, I'm gonna go get some water or something."

Keely nodded without turning around and listened to the fading noises of Tia's sneaker and the rubberized feet of the crutches alternately hitting the ground.

"I... I heard that you're supposed to be able to hear me... they say hearing is even the last sense to go when people die... I guess they say that talking is supposed to help people wake up... I don't know if it'll help... I just want my baby sister back..." She reached over and grabbed her sister's limp hand and squeezed it. "Just wake up..."

Tia waited outside the door, leaning against the wall, glancing occasionally over into the room, waiting for Keely to give her some sort of signal.

"I just wish there was something I could say to make it all better," Keely whispered. "But I guess there's not." She looked intently for a flickering eyelid or a twitching finger, but saw nothing. "Please... wake up..." She sighed, then looked over her shoulder and caught Tia's eye. She nodded, and the brunette hobbled back in.

"You gonna be okay?" Tia asked. Keely nodded as she rested her head face-down on the side of the bed. Tia reached down and patted her hand. Keely bolted up, then smiled at Tia, trying to hide her disappointment upon finding it was her.

"I'll be alright," Keely said, standing up. "I hope everyone in this room will be."

Tia sighed and gave the little sister's head a gentle pat. "Hang in there, kiddo..."Keely looked up at Tia and pursed her lips. Tia took the hint, and asked, "You ready to go?"

Keely nodded slowly. She stood next to the bed as Tia made her way to the door and said, "I love you, Bonbon," then leaned over and kissed her forehead. She let out a heavy sigh, then slowly turned and walked out the door.

Keely didn't speak again until they were back on the road, halfway to Tia's house. "Do I deserve misery?"

"What?" Tia asked, throwing a concerned glance over at her friend.

"I just... I don't know. I'm obviously the one who caused this. Don't I deserve some kind of punishment?"

"What do you mean? You _want_ to suffer more?"

"I... I just feel like it's not fair. She tried to save me from myself, and gets this? That's not fair."

"The world doesn't _work_ that way, Keely. You don't have to suffer the same she has. I'd say you've been through way more than you deserve to."

Keely frowned. "It _should_ work that way. Criminals shouldn't get to go free. Rape victims shouldn't be blamed for what happened to them. And little sisters with their whole lives ahead of them shouldn't get put into a coma trying to do the right thing for people they love."

"...she's gonna come out of it, you know."

"You can't know that."

"No... I just believe she will..."

Keely laughed softly. "How can you be so optimistic?"

Tia shrugged. "It's less tiring."

"How is it _less_ tiring? It's hard to find the good in life..."

"Dunno. Life's funny that way, isn't it?

Keely fell silent for a moment, reflecting on Tia's comment. "Yeah... I guess it is..."

- - -

_Who am I?_

The three words written in ruby lipstick stood out boldly on the mirror sitting above her desk.

"I am..." she said to herself, then paused in thought. She scanned the room, as if the lamp or the nightstand might offer an idea on who she might be.

Her camcorder lay forgotten in the corner; a tape with only a heart and a smiling face written on the label sat on top of it.

_I am not ready to let go._

She stood up and walked to the door. Her foot kicked a notebook lying open on the ground, with over half of its pages ripped out, now destroyed.

_I am changed!_

_Changing, I guess, actually,_ she added. _Still a long way to go. Hopefully?_

She exited her room, not noticing her cell phone, which was set to silent, lighting up, announcing an incoming message.

Her sister's door was halfway open. She pushed it open and took a look inside. The bed was made, the desk was clean, the floor was cleared. Curtis E. Bear sat on her pillow, that smile permanently frozen onto his face.

_I am guilty..._

She shook her head, pulled the door so it was nearly closed, and walked down the hall. She paused as her eyes fell on the tub in the bathroom.

_I am..._

Minutes later, but not many, a knock sounded at the door. Mandy opened it. "Hey there, Pumpkinhead!" she greeted with a smile.

Via smiled and replied with a, "Hello, Mrs. Teslow," noting to herself how glad she was that the woman didn't make a reference to fish and chips or crumpets.

"Come in, come in! So what brings you over here?"

"Oh, I tried calling Keely but she didn't pick up. Was she asleep?"

"Last I checked she was. You can go check if you want; I've got some work to do but I'll be down here if you need anything. Okay, Sugar?"

Via nodded. "Thank you," she said, and with that, headed upstairs. Keely's door was open, revealing her empty room. "Keely?" she asked, poking her head in. She noticed the tape she had caught Keely weeks earlier (was it months, now? Time seemed an illusion at this point, all things considered) watching so obsessively was sitting on the middle of the bed. On the mirror, a message written in lipstick: "Who am I?" Much of the first word had been smeared, as if someone had started to wipe it off.

"Hmmph." She walked down the hall, when she noticed across the hall, the bathroom door was slightly ajar. She saw Keely's shoe and part of her lower leg: she looked to be kneeling beside the tub. Via approached, not too quietly, since the running water would most likely drown out her footsteps.

"Keely, what are you..." She slowly pushed open the door and cut herself off, shutting her eyes and wincing.

Keely glanced over her shoulder, then slowly turned her head back to the tub.

Via slowly opened one eye, then the other, and took a deep, steadying breath. "Keely... oh, what have you done to yourself..."

Keely knelt over the tub, her right arm dangling in the basin, her fingers reaching at the water. Via shook her head and slowly walked up next to her, looking at Keely's bloody right arm with a mix of disgust and pity.

"I wasn't trying to off myself," Keely mumbled, as she swished her fingers through the small pool of water that was steadily being sucked down the drain.

Via sighed and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. "Let's get you cleaned up," Via said. She walked to the linen closet beside the bathroom and pulled out a few washcloths, then came back in and knelt beside Keely. She dipped one in the water, and gently started dabbing away at the blonde's arm, revealing one cut after another.

Keely winced as Via wiped away at her cuts.

"I know, I know it hurts, Darling... just stay still. It'll be over soon...." She glanced back down at her arm and revealed another cut. "Bloody hell, Keely, are you sure you weren't trying to top yourself?"

"I swear, Vee... I wasn't..."

Via sighed. "I believe you."

"...really?"

"If you say you weren't trying to do it, I believe you."

"No questions asked?"

"No questions asked."

Keely bit her lip.

Via suddenly became aware that during the whole process, Keely was looking straight at her. She slowly looked up at the blonde.

"Did you mean it?"

"Did I mean what?"

"The... the other day. When I was over. Right before I left."

"Oh. That."

"Did you mean it?"

Via, trying to focus on Keely's arm, elected not to answer.

"I promise not to run away," Keely said, lifting her free hand.

Via wiped away at some dried blood just above the crook of Keely's elbow, before taking a breath and saying, "You know, you're supposed to swear with your right hand in the air..." She looked up at Keely without lifting her head to do so and raised an eyebrow. Keely sighed in exasperation. Via wrung out the cloth and grabbed a clean one.

"I'm sorry I freaked out," Keely said. "I know you... well. You know."

Via paused, her left hand holding onto Keely's upper arm, her right holding the cloth, hovering motionlessly over her arm.

"Right?"

"Pardon?"

"I just... what did you mean when you said... that you loved me?"

Via heaved a sigh and gently wrapped the cloth over Keely's arm as the blood clotted. "Forget about it."

"No, Via... I need to know... please?"

Olivia, on the verge of tears, slowly straightened up and looked Keely in the eyes. "How would you have felt? How would you have felt if you told Phil you loved him, and he ran out of the room?"

Keely's shoulders drooped as she let out a short sigh. "Oh... Vee... I am _so_ sorry..."

Via shook her head. "Forget I said it. It was stupid."

"Via—"

"I get it. You don't need to explain yourself."

"I was just—"

"Keely. Please. Don't do this to me."

"Sorry... I just... I've never thought of you... that way..."

"I know. It's alright."

Via looked down again, and Keely sighed as she gazed at her. _Who am I...?_

"We should..." Via cleared her throat and started over. "We should get you bandaged up." She lifted the washcloth draped over Keely's arm and reached for the gauze. Just as she started to pick it up, she paused, and took a second look at the cuts on her friend's skin.

Carved deep into the flesh, tall, red, and pronounced, were the words, "I AM KEELY".


	13. Miseria Cantare: The Beginning

"I'm sorry."

Keely's words went unnoticed, falling on Bonnie's ears.

"I didn't handle it well. I was scared. I was hopeless. I didn't know how to deal with what I was feeling. And then I got you involved. I put you in a dangerous situation. You got hurt, and it's my fault. I'm _sor_ry."

She sighed. Tia had told her that apologizing would help, that she might be able to start forgiving herself for what happened because of her. She just felt it was too ineffective.

"I dunno if it's felt as long to you as it has to me... a lot's changed since you... since you went under."

She rested her head on the bed, beside her sister's shoulder.

"I wish I could do something that would make things better. I don't know what else to do. Everything just got so confusing all of a sudden. Therapy... I guess it helps... Part of me feels like it's just a friend paid to listen to my problems though. A friend I don't even get along with."

A team of doctors pushing a bed rushed past the door, which was slightly ajar. Keely picked up her head and watched distractedly, then laid her head down, looking at the knob of the door.

"They said I shouldn't take antidepressants because that increases the suicide risk.... I don't know, I heard those make you feel weird... like, not like yourself anymore... maybe it's a good thing."

She reached for Bonnie's hand and grabbed onto it.

"I wish I knew what to do... about everything, really. And about Via. She said... she loves me. And I don't know what to do. I talked to her the other day about it but she kept on changing the subject. I don't know what to do."

"...do you _ev_er stop talking..."

Keely opened her mouth to respond, then stopped and picked her head up. "You... you're awake!"

Keely's face lit up as Bonnie shut her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "You woke me up with your motor mouth..."

Keely laughed and practically threw herself at her sister, wrapping her in a hug. Bonnie groaned in protest. "What's wrong?" Keely asked, pulling away, alarmed.

"You were on my arm," Bonnie muttered, drawing her right arm over her body. "So... what happened? I remember..." She leaned her head back, deep in thought. "I remember Tia was over, and...."

"...you, um... you two were in an auto wreck..."

Bonnie seemed alarmed. "Oh, God, is Tia okay?"

"She's fine; a little banged up, but... I mean, you were in a coma."

"...oh, wow..." She snapped her head over to look into Keely's eyes. "How long was I... asleep for?!"

Keely straightened up slightly, and replied in a somber tone, "Bonnie: you were out for over a year."

A look of horror slowly spread on the younger sister's face. "What?!"

Keely threw her head back as she let out a lilting laugh. "No, you were out for like, a week, girl. Ha ha ha– Ow!" Bonnie cut Keely's laughter short by punching her on the upper arm.

"So, um. You were talking about... something about Via?"

Keely's smile fell off her face. "Oh. That happy business."

"Did I hear that right? Does my big sister have an admirer?"

The big sister blushed. "Shuttup."

An amused grin slowly spread over Bonnie's face. "Ohhhhmygawd it's _true_! That's so funny! Oh, this is so good it just _has_ to be fattening!"

"Really not helpful."

"What did you say when she said it?"

"I—" Keely stopped and sighed, then finally admitted, "I... sort of ran out."

Bonnie didn't seem as amused by this. "Ridiculous folly. Inexcusable." Keely raised an eyebrow. "You could've at least said _some_thing."

"Don't you think I know that by now?"

"Have you talked to her about it since then?"

"Tried. She didn't really want to." Keely sighed and looked at her sister, who was now looking at her with alarmed concern. "What's wrong?"

"Are you okay?"

"What? Sure."

"No, like... it just occurred to me... that phone call..."

"Oh. Yeah, that. I'm... getting better."

"You know what I think you could use?"

"A hug?"

"...that, _or_... someone to stick by you through it all."

Keely smiled. "So glad you're awake again."

"Not _me_, you blubbering imbecile!" Keely tilted her head curiously again.

"Then... oh, you mean..."

"Yes, I mean."

"But I've never even thought of Via... that way!"

"She could be just what you need to help you through this, Keely! How will you know?"

Keely fell silent. She didn't have an answer to that.

"Think about it. That's all I'm saying."

Keely laughed softly, then leaned in and kissed her sister on the cheek. "I'm gonna call Mom. She'll want to see you."

Bonnie grinned and looked up at her sister smugly. "Can't avoid it forever."

"I liked you better when you were asleep." Bonnie rolled her eyes and landed another punch on Keely's upper arm.

- - -

Keely looked up as the white door opened. "I need your help."

"...with what?"

She held up a small videotape. "I don't want this."

Via raised an eyebrow. "And... you're giving it to me?"

"No... I want you to get rid of it."

"Ooooookay..." She slowly reached forward and took the tape from Keely's hand.

"Go on. Get rid of it."

Via looked Keely in the eyes, then lifted up the plastic flap, grabbed the tape, and pulled it out of the cassette. Keely's eyes softened as she watched her friend grab the film in her hands and break it apart.

"There," the brunette said, grabbing the cassette and tossing it aside.

"...Thanks."

Via narrowed her eyes and took a critical look at Keely. "That's not why you're here."

She sighed. "No. It's not."

"That's what I figured. Come on. Get in." Via stepped aside, waved Keely inside, and the two headed up to her room.

"There are some things that... need to be brought out into the open."

"Right," the brunette agreed. "What's on your mind?"

"You."

Via raised an eyebrow, then looked aside. "Really?"

Keely pressed her lips together and tilted her head to the side.

"Why'd you have me wreck that video?"

"Honestly? Because I didn't know if I wanted to do it."

"So you made me do it."

"No. I just... I knew you'd do the best thing for me."

Via sighed and sat down on her bed. "That predictable, am I?"

Keely ran a hand through her hair and paced back and forth. Via tracked her movements with her eyes, keeping her head turned down.

"I.... I usually have trouble with saying the right thing," Keely stammered.

"Sometimes it's better just to say the first thing on your mind..."

_What if the first thing I think is stupid? _"I'm just... not great at putting things into words, sometimes."

"That's... mildly surprising," Via muttered, smirking to herself. Keely took no notice of the jab and kept slowly pacing back and forth.

"I just... you know me a lot better than most people," Keely started, staring down at the sleeve covering her healing right arm. "And I just... I should've practiced this earlier," she muttered, with a small laugh.

"Didn't they write a song about this?"

"Who?"

"Never mind. You want to know something?"

"What?"

"You talk too much."

Keely turned around and faced Via, with her arms folded over her chest. "You know something... you're totally right." Via shrugged, almost as if to say, _naturally_. Keely sighed and watched Via, who was turned away, looking out her window, singing softly to herself.

"_I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say... I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be..._"

"You want to know something?"

"_I promise you, I promise–_ Pardon?" Via pulled her eyes away from the window and looked up at Keely.

"You listen too much."

Via glanced down at her shoes. Keely crept towards the bed, bringing her left hand up to Via's cheek. Just as Via turned to look up, Keely leaned down and kissed her, shutting her eyes and allowing herself to become lost in the moment. She rested her right knee on the bed beside Via's thigh to steady herself; Via straightened up and placed her hands on Keely's waist.

And just as soon as it had come, the moment passed. Keely slowly pulled away and stood back up. Via looked up at her uncertainly.

"Did that feel.... right to you?"

Keely ran a hand through her hair and let out a sigh. "...I don't know. It didn't feel _wrong._.."

Via cleared her throat and scratched the back of her neck. That wasn't exactly the answer she was hoping for. Then again, it wasn't exactly the answer she expected, either.

"The thing is... part of me thinks you might be just what I needed..."

The brunette glanced up and offered a wide grin, brighter than Keely had ever remembered seeing on her face.

"I'm... I'm no one at all, Vee..."

Via chuckled softly and stood up, taking Keely's right arm in her left hand, and deftly holding onto her arm with her right hand. "How quickly you forget... do I need to show you what's under this sleeve?"

Keely smiled and took Via's hand in hers. "I need a new beginning. I need something more. I won't be content with the mediocre anymore. Misery will sing its wretched chant. I'm learning that I have to appreciate that to appreciate happiness."

She frowned as Via pulled her right sleeve up and looked at her lacerated arm; the cuts were healing nicely, but the message still stood out strong on her skin.

"I'm really glad you're coming around, Keely... I'll always be here for you," she said, putting her hand on Keely's upper chest.

A tear fell from Keely's eye. She smiled, then laughed softly to herself as another tear dropped down her face. Via shut her eyes and hugged her, smiling to herself. Keely hugged her back and stayed silent, knowing her joyful tears spoke more for her than she could think to say, knowing that the girl she was holding onto would be there for her all the time, knowing that, for the first time in far too long, things looked like they were finally going to be okay.

* * *

**Lyrics of When In Rome's "The Promise" written by Farrington, Floreale, and Mann!**


End file.
